The Will to Act
by Jonn Wood
Summary: Shepard acquires a "very special asset". Covers all three games, at various times, using different versions of Shepard.
1. Chapter 1

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,  
>And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;<br>**-"The Destruction of Sennacherib", Lord Byron**

The Citadel was a lot like Commander John Shepard remembered. A little more tense, true, a little more hard-edged. A few more people walking around with guns, like they expected glowing-eyed husks to show up any moment.

He checked his omnitool. Yep, this was the place.

"A special asset" Hackett had said, in that gravelly voice of his. Told him to sit at the bar, second stool from the left, and wait.

The bartender showed up.

"Can I get you something?"

"Water."

"Big spender."

Shepard smiled thinly.

The bartender came back with the glass in one hand and a cocktail in the other.

"What is this?"

"From the gentleman down the bar, Commander."

Shepard got a drop on his finger, touched it to the port on his omnitool. It didn't register any known poisons or toxins. He had the mod installed-with a little help from Mordin-after that incident when he turned blue for a week. It also, helpfully, told him it was a human drink called an "appletini".

There was a guy down the bar, but he didn't look up. Shepard turned back to find the bartender downing the drink in one gulp.

And the little cherry.

After a few seconds, Shepard managed to close his mouth. "Chiro."

"Yep." He set the glass back on the counter, straightened the lapels of his shirt, something that was almost a smile on his lips.

"So, which disguise is this one?"

"No disguise. This is all me. Well, except for the vest. Speaking of which-" he checked his watch "-it's quitting time."

"How'd you know when I'd show up?"

"No, I'm _literally_ quitting."

Shepard studied the (assassin? spy?) infiltrator in front of him. Tall, a hair below two metres. Black hair, blue eyes. Wide shoulders, moved like he knew how to handle himself. Even with his clothes, Shepard knew he was not a stone wall like Vega, but well muscled all the same. A jaw you could hang a lamp on, like grandpa used to say. All in all, he probably had to beat the boys, girls, and asari off with a stick.

"How long have you had this job?"

"Since I gave the regular guy a few hundred credits to take a smoke break."

"Hey!" called some barfly. "Gimme another Krogan Insertion."

"Right away, sir. I'll be right back."

Shepard called up the recipe for the drink on his omnitool, and found that the infiltrator was mixing it like he had been doing it all is life. He acted exactly like every skilled barkeep in the galaxy.

"Is there anything you _aren't_ good at?" Shepard asked when Chiro returned.

He shrugged. "It's useful. People like to talk to bartenders. Meet you by the elevator."

"You got all your gear in that bag?" Shepard said after a few floors of stony silence.

"No, most of it is already on the Normandy."

"How-nevermind."

"By the way, you really need better security when you buy food."

"Our food is checked three separate times to get to the ship."

"Like I said, better security."

The commander took a deep breath. Of course, Chiro could've asked someone else to take his stuff on board, or just left it from the last time they flew together.

"You're not going to make me crawl through any more tubes, are you?"

"None you weren't going to anyway."

Of course, the infiltrator could just be messing with him, with that weird sense of humor of his.

The elevator went "ding" when it opened.

As they passed through the refugees near the Normandy's berth, Shepard watched Chiro tense, just a little. he did something with his arm, and one of his throwing knives appeared in his hand, probably shaken from his loose sleeves.

They stopped a few times to chat. Or, more accurately, Shepard chatted while Chiro stood nearby with his head on a swivel.

"I don't see why you-"

"Because it helps people." Shepard answered. "Gives them a little more hope. It's the right thing to do."

Chiro sighed at the foolishness of certain commanders, and followed Shepard into the Normandy.


	2. Chapter 2

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

-**"The Destruction of Sennacherib", Lord Byron**

Jane Shepard transferred a few credits to the quartermaster as she approached the range's counter. Her identification check consisted entirely of tilting her head, smiling, and pointing at her face, all done in the most sardonic matter possible. She swept through the door with her second-favorite pistol on her hip, and tried to look surprised.

"Hey! Chiro! Didn't expect to see you here."

"You're breathing hard. You ran to get here. Next time, tell the quartermaster to wait until the subject can't see him before he makes the call."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

That almost-smile of his. "I'm sure you don't."

He was wearing his custom light armor, in its usual dark blue and grey, with the dull gold toolbelt. His helmet covered most of his head, leaving the lenses for his eyes white slits and his mouth exposed. Plus there were the "ears", which Chiro swore up and down were necessary for the sonic imaging.

Of course, Jane wasn't about to throw stones. She still had a capacitor helmet buried somewhere, with its giant glowing faceplate that said "shoot me here!" to any foes.

"Where's your tac cloak?"

"Don't need it on the range."

When the infiltrator spoke with his kit on, his voice dropped what Shepard would swear was a clear octave, completely different from what he had used in the bar. And that made her think of music lessons with Mom, and how she died-

Jane blinked away the ghosts.

"Mind if I join you?"

"No problem."

Of course, she knew Tali had the cloak - which was an actual cloak - for something Top Secret she and Chiro were working on. Jane hadn't wanted to pry, so she let them have their privacy. Of course, she had the sneaking suspicion Chiro knew she knew, leaving only Tali in the dark. But she couldn't ask him without revealing that she knew, so she had to pretend that she didn't know he knew she knew.

He could be infuriating like that, sometimes.

Chiro's throwing knives were about the size of an old-school Alliance disc-grenade. They were flat and round, with sharp or blunt edges as the situation demanded, and could be dispensed readily from Chiro's omnitools.

"Why do you have three omnitools?" she had asked once.

And Chiro had done his not-smile and gone "I like to be prepared."

She watched him, now, tossing multiple knives at the targets in rabid succession, with an oddly sinuous motion. He faced his target square-on, whipping the little things from the dispensers on either side of his dull-gold toolbelt with alternating arms.

They didn't do much damage, sure, but they were usually low-velocity enough to be ignored by a kinetic barrier. And when they stuck in a target, like they were doing now-

The knives exploded. They acted, come to think of it, a lot like a ninja's _shuriken_.

"Who taught you how to do that?"

The infiltrator managed to shrug without breaking the rhythm of his second volley. "Travelled a lot. And...boom."

The shuriken detonated, this time covering the target in ice.

"That's new."

"I kept running into a scientist who was using cryo-tech to raise Cain. His wife was an Ardat-Yakshi."

Shepard thought of Samara, of what drove the justicar. She winced.

"Exactly. Put her in cryo. While he was trying to cure her, he accidentally...changed himself."

The target trundled obediently to mid-range.

He was switching it up. Pausing occasionally for a better-aimed throw, where he raised the shuriken to head level. Better accuracy than the snap shots. Shepard thought about it in terms of automatic fire vs bursts.

"He couldn't survive in normal temperatures. Built himself a cold suit."

"Wait, I thought cryo was experimental?"

"It is. Never been tested successfully."

"Did he know?"

Chiro paused. "I'm...not sure. Maybe he knew, on some level. He's out kidnapping scientists to force them to 'cure' her, and every time someone tells him she's already dead, he just freezes them too."

Was it just her, or was he throwing the knives a little harder than he had to?

"He killed about dozen people, including his wife, before I got to him."

The shuriken stuck in the target's head.

"Trial's in three months."

It detonated.

"I'm sorry," said the Spectre.

The infiltrator looked confused. "Why? You didn't kill her."

He pushed his target back to its stop, near the backwall of the range.

The throwing knives could be highly accurate at long range. Shepard suspected some sort of mass effect propulsion, sort of like the guns.

And sometimes, throwing wasn't enough-

Chiro raised his hands, fists clenched, and a stream of tiny high-speed knives shot from both omnitools. Then two full-size ones. Then full-size on one wrist and streams on the other. The little ones moved faster, but the big ones had a larger payload. Still, both were highly ballistic. And above all, _quiet_.

He had to aim these too, Jane saw. Drop was much more of a factor, and he didn't have sights, so she suspected some sort of path projection linked to his helmet. Either that, or he was aiming them manually, which would be just crazy.

The first cluster of small darts impacted in the target's left shoulder, followed closely by their right. Cold and explosive, respectively.

(_Target will find it difficult to aim their weapon, even if they retain it._)

And a heavy ice shuriken near their feet.

(_Decrease target stability._)

Two more explosive ones to the general crotch and upper inside thigh area.

(_Target crippled._)

And one more to the upper torso, around the throat, where armor would naturally be weak. Boom.

(_Neutralize._)

Chiro raised his gauntlets, setting them to vent. Steam boiled off them as he turned to the Commander.

"Anything else?"

"That's all for now," Shepard said.

As she left, she wondered why his omni-tools all glowed blue.


	3. When Shepard met Chiro at Chora

And all that 's best of dark and bright  
>Meet in her aspect and her eyes:<br>-**"She walks in Beauty", Lord Byron**

Jean-Paul's squad found Chora's Den locked when they returned.

"I can bypass the lock," Shepard noted, "but I don't think they'll roll out the welcome wagon when we do. Tactical positions."

He was closest to the door, of course, with Alenko and Wrex right behind him. Williams and Vakarian were a ways back, ready to provide covering fire.

"Hurry up, Shepard," said the krogan in that deep voice of his. "I've got a contract to carry out."

"It sure is a good thing that no one just said they were planning to assassinate someone in front of me, a cop," Garrus noted. "Otherwise, I'd have to arrest them."

Wrex snorted. "That would be fun."

"I don't think so. I've had to arrest a krogan before."

"I didn't say fun for you."

Jean-Paul tried not to smile. "Ready? On three. One, two-"

The door slid open, to reveal a blistering hail of crossfire.

"Call me crazy, Commander, but I don't think we can get through that," Williams pointed out.

"So noted."

"Time for a krogan infiltration," Wrex muttered.

"What does that-"

"_Grahhhh!_" yelled the battlemaster, and charged in.

_Merde_, thought Shepard.

He had fought with and against krogans before. They liked to rush headlong into battle, which he had originally compared to that of a hockey power forward. Then to an American football player. Then he realized that one could not compare a Krogan charge to anything but a Krogan charge.

It simplified matters.

He and Alenko followed Wrex. The room was round, with the bar being a large column-like structure in the middle with a stage for the dancers on tip. The whole thing was shaped more or less like a donut with a creamy stripper filling.

The Battlemaster had gone to the left, and was currently making much merriment among the thugs to that side of the bar. A rampaging Krogan made for an excellent shock trooper, and tended to distract people from the two Alliance marines coming up behind him.

Shepard directed Williams and Vakarian toward the right side of the room. That still left the blindspot on the far side of the bar from the door, and a certain spot on the back of his neck was itching. Shepard turned to the right and found one of the thugs aiming a sniper rifle at right him, and he tried to swing his own assault rifle around -

Something flaming flew through the air, and the thug caught fire.

Everyone froze.

The bartender was an asari, and he hadn't noticed her before. No one had. As if she hadn't even noticed everyone in the bar had stopped dead, as if a batarian wasn't screaming in agony a few feet away, she grabbed two bottles from the shelf, wrapped some cloth around each, set them both on fire with her omnitool, and then threw them in two directions at the stunned thugs. Who, obligingly, also caught on fire.

"Um," said Wrex.

The thugs, of course, found it rather difficult to choose between the squad of heavily armed soldiers invading their bar like an extremely aggressive health inspection, and being set on fire. Those who chose to shoot at the bartender exposed themselves to Shepard's team. Those shooting at the team were flushed out by the improvised firebombs. Molotovs, Shepard remembered reading in some book.

It took less than five minutes to mop up the defenders.

"Thanks," Jean-Paul said, lowering - but not safing - his weapon. "Who are you?"

"I'm - hang on." The asari touched her throat, and her voice changed. "I'm the guy who just helped you."

Everyone else stared at the male human voice coming out of the asari's mouth.

"Very clever," Shepard noted. "How does that disguise work?"

"Very well." The not-asari reached under the counter, and drew out a toolbelt and cloak.

"What are you doing here?"

The stranger belted up. "I was undercover, trying to get something concrete on Fist."

"Without telling C-Sec, I note," Garrus pointed out.

The bartender shrugged. "You guys needed plausible deniability. If some private citizen happened to have a fetish for dressing up as an asari, that's not illegal. If he just happened to find pertinent information, the right thing to do would be to inform C-Sec."

Garrus sighed. "You're going to get yourself killed one of these days."

"Hasn't happened yet. Also, according to the security cameras, there are two more guys in the warehouse, behind that door."

"More thugs?"

"No, they're just the warehouse workers. Just...guys. Fist just gave them guns and shoved them out."

Funny thing; even through prosthetics, Shepard could still see that the disguised man was worried.

"Let me talk to them. Maybe I can, I dunno, convince them to retire early."

Shepard shrugged. "Worth a shot."

The stranger nodded, hopped the bar, and headed for the back room. He stopped before entering to turn the vocalizer on again.

Shepard picked up the sniper rifle. A Level IV Naginata, said his HUD.

"Garrus, didn't you say you had training in these?"

"Yeah, but not much call for them on a space station."

The marine brushed some ashes off the weapon. "Aren't there laws about C-Sec officers being allowed to use criminal property in the course of an investigation?"

"You know, I think there are." Wrex said.

"That settles it. Catch."

"Shepard, I -" Garrus sputtered.

"You don't have to say anything. Consider it a gift. For all of the paperwork you're going to have to fill out."

Garrus looked at the wrecked bar. "Good point."

The door to the warehouse opened, and two men came out of it with their hands up and empty. One took a look at the dead thugs all around, and swallowed. They edged their way to the front door.

"And that's that. Nothing between us and Fist's office."

"How'd you do that thing with the bottles?" Ashley asked.

"I wrapped some cloth around them and set them on fire."

"No, I mean, how'd you make them break?"

"I planned ahead."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You replaced every bottle of liquor in the bar with breakable glass?"

"No, just the ones that would make good Molotovs."

"Garrus, who is this guy?"

The turian looked uncomfortable. "He was actually in C-Sec for a while, until he..went too far."

"I swear, you drop one suspect, just one. How was I supposed to know the line would break? And they fixed her up with a new leg, good as new!"

"Then C-Sec had to settle with her for pain and suffering, and had to drop the charges," Garrus pointed out.

The stranger waved his hand dismissively. "Details."

"I think I see why they kicked you out," Shepard noted.

"They didn't kick me out, I left. I felt I was dealing with an increasingly hostile working environment-"

"Yes, from all the _lawsuits_," Garrus said.

"Very funny. If you're so much better than I am, why didn't you take the back door?"

"Good question," Shepard noted. "Garrus, why _didn't_ we take the back door?"

"Didn't know there was one."

The stranger snorted. "You thought that they just bring stuff in through the dance floor? What kind of underworld nightclub has people tossed out the front?"

"Where's the back door?"

"Right next to Fist's office, actually. Could've saved you a lot of trouble."

Jean-Paul turned to the Turian with a raised eyebrow.

"What? You're the leader, I was following you."

Shepard sighed. "Shall we?"

The team cleared the small warehouse, with the Krogan on point. The next room was large, and open, and contained both Fist and two very enthusiastic turrets.

They retreated to the warehouse.

"Any ideas?" Shepard asked.

Alenko looked at a nearby trolley. "Just one, but it's really stupid."

"What is it?"

"Very risky."

"What is it?"

"Probably get us all killed."

"_What is it_?"

Kaiden grinned.

Shepard sighed.

A few minutes later, Fist saw one of the boxes from his warehouse roll itself into his office, sitting on a trolley. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes. What was going on? Did the people who had torn through his best men decide to just load the boxes up with bombs? Or were they-

The turrets opened fire. Someone was hiding behind the box, and they could see it, but he couldn't. He edged closer to the turret on his right.

The person behind the crates threw a bottle. One that was on fire.

Fist dived away as the bottle broke all over the turret, setting it ablaze. It wasn't flammable, of course, but it was vulnerable to heat, and sensors registered the temperature as being outside of its operating parameters. As programmed, it went into diagnostic mode.

A second later, what looked like his top-shelf triple-filtered Turian brandy did in the second turret. Fist stared, mouth agape, as his last line of defense fell. Less than ten minutes, and these people had cut through him like a hot knife through butter.

And how had they gotten the bottles to break?

A third bottle arced toward him, and he let out a quite unmanly squawk and dove forward over his desk as it hit. The flames licked at the potted ferns as he huddled behind the ring of couches in the center of the room.

And then they were there.

A hand closed on his wrist, twisted the pistol out of it, and hauled him up. Eyes of glacial blue looked over him.

"_Bonjour, Monsieur Fist_. I'd like to talk to you about a certain quarian."

The club owner decided to be cooperative.

He told them about the ambush he had set for the quarian, only a few minutes. She thought she was meeting with him, but she'd only find his men, and no escape. Then they'd take her body and destroy it. He didn't tell them that he had said his men were allowed to have a little fun before-or after-they killed her; these people didn't seem like they'd take that too well. Especially the N7. If he'd known one of those was coming after him, he'd probably have just surrendered in the first place.

The marine just..._dropped_ him. Like he was garbage. Just dropped him and turned away. Fist's eyes flicked to his gun, only a few inches away. No. No way he'd make it out alive. He'd be lucky to even drop their shields, much less kill anyone-

Wrex fired his shotgun, spattering bits of Fist over half the office.

"What?" The battlemaster looked around. "He was going for his gun. You all saw it."

"Yes..." said Garrus slowly. "I guess I did."

"Wait," Williams said. "Where's the bartender?"

Garrus sighed. "He did that vanishing thing again, didn't he? I swear, since he started this whole vigilante thing, no one's ever seen him leave a room through the door."

Shepard checked the map on his omnitool. "All right, back out the front."

Just as he opened the door onto the main floor, a high-powered round tore through the air, dropping his shields to nothing. Even as he ducked and pulled his assault rifle, he hit the door control.

"Of course. Backup. And they probably won't believe us if we say their boss is dead. Can we get out the back way?"

Garrus checked his map, and shook his head. "It would take too long to get to the quarian."

"Lovely. Wrex, you ready to show these _crosseurs_ another Krogan infiltration?"

"Hang on." Wrex held up two bottles, presumably from Fist's desk. "I want to try making one of those cocktails myself."

"Those bottles are going to be harder to break. You'd have to smash people over the head with them."

The scarred krogan nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. Has anyone ever used these 'molotovs' as melee weapons?"

Shepard sighed.

* * *

><p>According to what the stranger could see as he opened the door on the far side of the alley from Chora's, the quarian had winged a tech bomb at the two helmeted salarians, and both they and the skull-faced turian still seemed dazed by it. They were facing the other way, and the not-asari palmed a heavy disc, sidearming it at the nearer of the two.<p>

Specifically, at their head.

It was too low-speed and high-weight to trigger the barrier, and as it bounced off the helmet, the salarian was stunned, in turn, by his head bouncing off the inside of his own helmet.

The door snapped shut.

"What? What was that? Grenade!"

There were a few seconds of confusion. He had specifically designed the heavy disk to resemble an Alliance disc grenade, and it was often useful for buying time. _Come on, Shepard, where are you?_

"Check it out. You, cover the quarian."

Chiro tossed a small, orange light behind a crate a ways down the hall, and waited.

She would be breathing faster, now, trying to contact someone, anyone. But an immigrant Quarian didn't usually have anyone's number, and even if they did, they wouldn't make it there fast enough to make a difference, even if they decided to come.

The salarian came through the door, and was distracted for just a second by the glow of what he thought was an omnitool. The cloaked man reached out, and a second later had both a brand new handgun and a salarian with a sprained wrist.

He shoved the gun into the assassin's face. "Turn around. Hands up."

The salarian went still, like he was about to try and get his weapon back, or call for help.

The vigilante smashed him in the head with the handgun.

"That was not a request."

When the door opened, the two killers were surprised to find their partner, with his hands up. They could just barely see someone behind him, someone in a cloak.

"Hi," said the stranger. "I want the quarian, or your buddy gets i-"

The second salarian shot the hostage.

The vigilante swore and ducked back into cover.

Well, _that_ hadn't worked. He couldn't throw one of his knives, and he was fresh out of dirty tricks. Maybe he should've brought a bottle with him.

He could always die distracting the killers and hope the quarian got away. A young man in an asari disguise dies, and a young girl maybe provides evidence necessary to bring down a corrupt Spectre.

Fair trade.

He elbowed the door control, and peeked out just in time to see Shepard came down like a wolf on the fold.

The turian killer stumbled back under the volley from the N7's squad. He didn't even get his gun up before his shields collapsed and Garrus put a round through his chin. And spine.

The remaining salarian dropped his gun, deactivated his shields, and stumbled into view with his hands up. "Don't shoot! I surrender! I-I'll tell you everything! Fist hired us!"

The cloaked man shot him in the back. "We know."

This was all very confusing to Tali, who pointed her gun at the larger group. "Who _are_ you people?"

"The cavalry," rumbled Wrex.

"_What_?"

"We're here to help," said the cloaked man, walking down the steps.

Maybe a trick of the light, Tali thought. Maybe he wore some sort of special cloak, with some sort of light-dampening feature which only worked with the hood up. Whatever it was, it somehow shrouded him in shadow, leaving only the faint impression of curves. He _lurked_ in plain sight. An avatar of darkness and the night.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice a deep rasp.

"_Keelah_," Tali whispered. She gathered herself, put away her well-worn pistol. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Good," Shepard said. "We're going to need that evidence against Saren."

"That's what _they_ said."

"Fine. We'll personally you to the human ambassador, entirely unmolested."

"How can I trust you?"

"You can't." Shepard's smile went cold, and his eyes went hard. "But you can't fight us, either. If we wanted to, we could've killed you ourselves."

"I'd do what he says, lady." The cloaked man started walking away, back in the direction of Chora's Den. "I have to pick up my severance pay."

"Sorry about the mess," Williams murmured.

The stranger paused at the corner, and Shepard swore he saw a smile before he vanished in a flap of his cloak.

"Was that an Asari?" asked the quarian.

Shepard sighed. "Long story. We're going to need a name, _Ma'amoiselle_..."

"Zorah. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance."

"Pleased to meet you, Commander. Thank you for saving my life."

The far door opened, revealing a male quarian with a large pistol. "You needed help?"

"I'm fine now, thank you."

Shepard's 'tool beeped at him. The stranger's name had been added to his squad roster. It said "Chiro".


	4. Chapter 4

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing  
>To see the human soul take wing<br>In any shape, in any mood.  
><strong>-The Prisoner of Chillon, Lord Byron<strong>

The Grissom Academy atrium was nice. Doubtless expensive, though; the river probably clogged up a lot, someone had to rake up the tree leaves. And, in a curious design oversight, there were no cunning little nooks for the students to get a little private time.

Misty Shepard took in the Cerberus troops in her second second in the room.

She dove for the low wall in front of her, Vega and Tali right behind.

"Tali, pop fly."

"Roger," the Quarian said, and started prepping a recon drone.

"I'm crushed, Shepard. You're replacing me?" came a raspy baritone over the com.

Shepard grinned in spite of herself. "Chiro, I thought I told you to stay on the ship."

"Sorry, my helmet's audio receivers were acting up." Chiro's name added itself appeared on her fireteam roster. "I can always go back."

Misty sighed on the inside. "Where are you?"

"Around. More importantly, where's the Phantom trying to get a bead on you?"

A round bounced off the other side of the wall.

"Correction; bead gotten."

"Could you be a little more useful?"

In response, the tag for the Phantom popped up on Shepard's HUD, along with a whole slew of other Cerberus tags.

"Thank you."

There wasn't much cover between Misty and the forces in the basin, and the Phantom had an excellent oversight position.

Of course, this also meant that there wasn't much cover for the Cerberus troops either, so the students' loss was her gain. And their gain too, if they could work from the upper balcony.

Then again, that was assuming conventional movement.

Misty Shepard took a deep breath, and drew blue energy into her, through her, became one with it, and pushed-

She had heard it compared it to flying, once. It seemed entirely inadequate.

The sniper never knew what hit her.

Misty had to give her credit; she was a tough girl. Most people wouldn't still be awake after a Charge, much less reaching for their sidearm. Of course, any cybernetic augmentations she had must've been designed for delicate motor control, not hand to hand with an N7 marine who specialized in close combat.

None of the Cerberus forces even noticed the gunshot.

Shepard caught the rifle as the sniper dropped to the floor and began to self-destruct. "Jack, move. We'll cover you."

In response, one of the troopers below suddenly screamed as someone - probably a heavily tattooed someone - created a small warp bubble, centered on his face. He dropped his shield and clawed at his helmet, and Shepard dropped him with a shot through his ruined faceplate. Mercy kill, really. Mercy they didn't deserve.

The white clad troopers took a second to react before turning to pepper Shepard's position with suppressive fire, and she went prone, kicking the sniper's corpse off the side as she did so.

"Carnage and Sabotage, let's go!"

Vega and Tali responded appropriately, and the Cerberus troopers reacted predictably, with their Centurion dropping smoke. Of course, that meant they couldn't see anyone else either.

"I don't have sight, and this is a bad angle for the sonics," said Chiro. "Displacing."

Tali yipped "Are you going to -"

"Yep."

Shepard looked up just in time to see Chiro leap from his perch, spread his cloak into a sort of glider, and start to swoop across the atrium. She had just enough time to think _so that's what they were working on_before something blasted up from the cloud of smoke and tagged him, sending him spiralling down.

_No_.

_Not again_.

Entirely unbidden, the tune from "Modern Major-General" floated through her head.

"Does anyone have eyes on him? Security cameras, anything?" Shepard peered through her scope, to find, well, smoke. Even the thermal mode in her optics didn't do anything.

Vega and Tali both returned a negative.

"Jack, can you push back the smoke?"

"Maybe if I -"

An ID tag pinged on, in the middle of the cloud, and Shepard blinked. It was Chiro. A second later, he sent through a feed, images generated by a combination of visual and his sonics.

There was a rifle pointed at his head.

He had tapped into the troopers' feeds, and they were discussing whether to take his mask off, whether they should just kill him or try to hold him hostage.

A message appeared on the feed. "AIM HIGH. NOW."

"Gladly," Misty murmured, and fired. Potshot, really. Didn't expect to actually hit anything.

On the feed, the troopers automatically ducked and, more importantly, brought their guns up. In that moment, Chiro acted.

Like any N7, Shepard was excellent at hand-to-hand, though a solid elbow to the face tended to put down just about anything. But Chiro, Chiro was different.

She would have to analyze it, later. Play it back a dozen times in slow motion, with Chiro himself explaining. Hackett would request it be used for the ICT training scheme. It would be a lot simpler than it looked.

First, he activated his gauntlet omnitools, blue spikes flaring out with a whisper. The he palmed two of his throwing knives, and jammed both of them into cracks in the armor of the two troopers closest to him, at the ankle and knee. As both activated in a rush of cold, he trapped the rifle in his omni-spikes, jammed it with his EW suite, sat up, pulled the rifle out of the troopers hands with a twist, unjammed it, then turned it on its former owners.

It took maybe five seconds.

"Behind you!" Shepard barked, and fired at a Cerberus assault trooper. At close range, Chiro's sensors could relay even greater detail, but she still missed. Apparently, the fall had damaged them. Shepard dropped her aim to center mass, and fired again, this time more successfully.

There was another contact, running low to the ground, and she saw Chiro's shillouette suddenly bring his stolen gun up in a block, and then lean back as the Phantom stabbed her blade straight through it, right at his face. He tried to twist the rifle to lever the blade away, and the assassin didn't even react. In fact, the rifle spun out of his hands and nearly hit him before he managed to stop it and the sword on his gauntlets.

_Rotating wrists, that's new_.

Problem was, they were at an impasse. Chiro couldn't bring his launchers to bear without giving the Phantom an opening, and the woman's augmented strength would undoubtedly win the day sooner or later.

Probably sooner.

Of course, Chiro could use the palm dispensers, but the only one of his little gadgets likely to be effective at that range were the explosive ones -

_(Everyone's dying_.)

"Tali, can you hack the Phantom?"

From the distracted sound of her voice, the quarian had anticipated her. "I'm _trying_, Shepard, but they patched the firmware. I can't-"

"Vega -"

"Negative. I do not have a clean shot, not with the current sensor quality."

Sensor quality which Shepard knew about already, or she would have taken the shot herself. She bit back the urge to yell at Vega.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Commander?" a certain tattooed someone drawled over the comm. "Kids, drop the shield. We're going for the Collector special!"

A blue, biotic bubble appeared over the smoke cloud, then moved away, carrying off the smoke. Okay, it wasn't exactly what had held off the seeker swarms, but it did expose the cinched pair. She still didn't have a clean shot, but -

"_Keelah_!" cried Tali triumphantly. "I _got _it. She's locked up!"

"Chiro! Clear!"

The cloaked man slipped bonelessly away from the stiffened assassin, and Shepard sent a surge of biotic energy through her arm. "Tali, cut her loose."

The Phantom floated into the air, wreathed in blue light. The last thing she heard was a gun firing, and the faint noise of the round narrowly missing her head. The last thing she did was look up. The last thing she saw was Artemis Shepard smiling down at her from the far side of a sniper rifle.

She didn't even use the scope.


End file.
